the-podcast guy recently linked this essay, its old, but i don't think its significantly wrong (despite gpt evangelists) also read weizenbaum, libs, for the other side of the coin

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]
    ·
    6 months ago

    In any case, Chinese Room is not really relevant to the topic of if considering brains to be computers is somehow erroneous.

    My understanding was that the point of the chinese room was that a deterministic system with a perfect set of rules could produce the illusion of consciousness without ever understanding what it was doing? Is that not analogous to our discussion?

    • Tomorrow_Farewell [any, they/them]
      ·
      6 months ago

      At the very least some people are trying to use the Chinese Room thought experiment as an argument against the brain-as-computer analogy/framework.

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
        ·
        6 months ago

        Is it fair to say we both think the chinese room is a poor thought experiment that doesn't actually do what it claims to do?

        • Tomorrow_Farewell [any, they/them]
          ·
          6 months ago

          I suppose so. At least when it comes to the Chinese Room being used as an argument against brain-as-computer analogies/frameworks.